Stuffed Cabbage (Plnená Kapusta or Holubky)

One of the best things about online publishing is that it’s a great two-way learning street. Not only it allows you to share your knowledge with others, it also allows you to gain new knowledge from the comments and feedback left by the site visitors. What do I mean? Shortly after I started this website, I started getting requests for a recipe for holubky. I had no idea what people were talking about! Despite living in Slovakia for the first 14 years of my life, I had not heard of this dish. To this date, the first, and only time, I actually had this dish was not in Slovakia, but in the US. It was at a Christmas dinner showcasing traditional Slovak dishes, which, well, didn’t seem so traditional to me. So I started to research this mysterious holubky in more detail, and found that it’s a common dish in the eastern part of Slovakia. Slovakia, despite it’s small size, has quite a large variation in traditional dishes from one end to the other. In the central region, where I grew up, it seems that this dish has not caught on as, let’s say, bryndzové halušky or Hungarian goulash, two dishes I grew up with. But, a week ago I visited a local farmer’s market in Falls Church, VA, the town where I live, and found a nice head of cabbage there. I figured the time has come to finally make some stuffed cabbage (plnená kapusta).

Ingredients: one head of cabbage, 2 tbsp of oil or lard, 1 onion, 3 tsp flour, 1 small container of sour cream, paprikaFilling: 0.5lb ground beef, 1tsp oil, rice (half a cup to a cup), water (twice as much as rice), 1 small onion, 1 egg, black pepper, one clove of garlicPrep Time: 40 minutes

Make the filling and prepare the leaves

Start by cutting out the core from the cabbage (kapusta). Also take an onion (cibuľa), and grate it using a hand grater or a food processor. You will need two onions, one for the filling, and one for the sauce.

Stir the onion on a bit of oil until it foams. Add the rice (ryža). Next add water (twice as much as rice), cover, and cook until the rice is almost done. The recipe called for 1 cup of rice for the half pound of meat, but this made for a mixture bit heavy on the rice. Use less rice if you prefer more meat.

In the meantime, put the cabbage in a pot of hot water and bring to a slow boil. The leaves will start to fall off. Carefully remove the leaves as they come off with a knife. Next cut off the bottom stiffer part so you get a flexible leave that can be rolled. Save all pieces.

Chop the stiffer cut-off pieces into small strips. Fry for few seconds on oil along with a grated onion and paprika. Cover with water and bring to a boil.

Stir in 3 teaspoons of flour (I used Wondra) into the sour cream. Take a small amount of the liquid from the sauce pan, and stir into the sour cream mixture to dilute it. This is better than directly putting the cream in the sauce, as it will keep the cream from lumping up. Stir the diluted cream into the sauce.

Mix the meat, the egg, ground black pepper, salt, and a crushed clove of garlic. Add the cooked rice, and mix together.

Filling cabbage leaves

Start filling the cabbage leaves. Take about a teaspoon of the filling and place it to one side of the leaf. Flip one side over. Ideally, do this diagonally, as if you were making a funnel. This is not shown too well in this set of pictures.

Complete the roll, and finally tuck the end pieces in.

Cook the Holubky

Place the holubky in the sauce and cover with a lid to keep them from coming apart. This may not be really required, since I cooked some separately and they stayed together.

Cook until done, the best way to check is to take one and try it. It cooked mine for about 30 minutes, until the cabbage leaves were nice and soft. By the way, you can also cook the holubky separately. This will give them a cleaner appearance. Enjoy!

Lubos, glad u wrote about holubky, You’re not really Slovak without cooking Holubky! or Kapusta na meso is a different name, U grew up in the center and heart of Slovakia and u never had ate or heard of Holubkie?
Philka

Nope, I guess it wasn’t something my family was found of? I’ve had my share of stuffed peppers (which I love) while growing up, but never any stuffed cabbage. I have not even heard the word “holubky” until I came to the US. Even these days, it’s tough to find this dish in Slovak restaurants. I’ve been keeping my eye open during my latest tour de’Slovakia, and not a single restaurant we visited had stuffed cabbage on the menu. Perhaps times are a-changing?

I love stuffed cabbage and my mom made the best with saurkraut along with chopped cabbage and tomatoe sauce and slow cooked in oven.
the bacon rind tip is wonderful will have to try myself.
the hispanics from mexico will smoke tamales on outside fire but the bacon rind good idea for indoors cooking of tamale.

I think I make it more the way my grandmothers (Babas) made it. First make the rice with 1/2 packet of onion soup mix. Then mix it with 1/2 pound ground beef, 1/2 pound ground pork and 1/2 pound ground veal with the rice and a bit of tomato juice (not too much, maybe a 1/4 – 1/2 cup). I freeze my heads of cabbage, then cut the core and stick in boiling water until the leaves come loose. I fashion the rolls as above. Then I put them in an oval roaster or crock pot with 32 oz (one can) or more of tomato sauce (not juice). If I bake them in the roaster, it’s for about 2 hours one 350ºF. If in the crock pot, on medium all day.

MMMMMmmmmmm holubky – a staple in our household when I was growing up – made with uncooked filling and tomato sauce – my Baba used to add saurkraut which I do to this day – talk about comfort food! Oh, and my southern mama used to have mashed potatoes as a “side dish” – heaven!!!

My mom (Slovak) always made the sauce using tomato soup. She also baked them in a roaster along with Kielbassa. This always added a lot of extra flavor. I have never heard of adding garlic to the filling. I will have to try that.
She also made ceregi. I loved helping with that so I could dust them with the powdered sugar.

Oh my, yes two of my favorites also. I have a great recipe for the cookies, and would love to make them for my kids, but lack the iron. Any one know where to buy one online, I live in a cultural vaccume.

My family (from Kosice) always made their Holubky with a little sauerkraut in the pot and some kind of tomato base. I have seen some use even V8 in the pot. I prefer a box of good tomatoes, blended smooth. Sour cream served on the side.

holubky = little pigeons!
holub= pigeon
My family made ours with
1. uncooked rice in the filling,
2. covered with water and tomato of some kind, depending what was on hand (mom even used ketchup if nothing else was handy!)
3. often with sauerkraut thrown in
4. on the stovetop
families were Zemplinska and Spišak

I’ve been trying to duplicate my Baba’s halupkis and never really could. (Her kitchen was absolutely her domain– no peeking or helping!) I think sauerkraut is the answer. My family was also from Zemplin and settled in NE Pennsylvania coal country in the late 1800’s.
Thanks for your post.

Not sure how my grandma made it much different than how my mom made it and passed along to us. Pretty much same ingredients. But they were heavily on paprika. And we use tomato sauce with some of the water after boiling the cabbage…because my grandmother was very low income, she didn’t use the sour cream. I just remember a soupy broth…tangy in taste with stuffed cabbage rolls. I believe the Plnena is more eastern Slovakia. My grandparent we from Kalotchko (probably misspelled).

Hi Amy—
I’m from Freeland & still make my mother’s/grandmother’s recipe.
The cabbage is prepared the same as this recipe.
Filling: ground chuck, a little ground pork, egg, & a handful of uncooked rice. Mix with your hands, fill & roll up like the recipe.
You can cook these a multiple of ways: bake, stove top, Instant Pot or slow cooker.
You’ll need a zaplashka(rhue) to add to your sauce. This is 50-50 butter& flour, fried until a rich, nutty color. You won’t need much & the left over can be frozen.
I prefer the sauerkraut sauce: Any large can or bag of sauerkraut will work, but keep the juice. Put a base layer of kraut down first with a teaspoon of zaplashka on top. Place a layer of rolls, top withsome more kraut & zaplashka. Keep alternating. Pour in the juice & add some water to just about cover them.
Cover & cook by your preferred method. My granny would cook all day on the stove top, my mom used a slow cooker & I now use an Instant Pot.
Some people prefer a tomato sauce or even a combination of the two.
Tomato sauce recipe varies, but I think it was a can of tomato sauce & water. You can also add stewed tomatoes. Don’t forget the zaplashka!
Let me know how it goes!!

Hi! I make them with tomato soup, cook them in the soup and water. The filling is beef, pork 1 egg and onions. Next, I put them in a big roasting pan, cover and cook at 335 until done good. Found this to be tastier than top of the stove!! Thank you for your recipes, Mary Faenza

We make ours with the sauce being tomato soup. I also put in quite a bit of garlic in my meat mixture. Bake in a 350ºF oven for about an hour. Note: I live in high altitude so that might make a difference in how long it is in the oven.

I honestly never thought about making it without tomato sauce, will have to try this variation!! Also we sometines add some small pieces of cooked bacon to the meat mixture. We simmer the stuffed leaves in seasoned tomato sauce, slowly till done, works great in a crockpot….

Your recipe is an interesting variation of the dish I grew up with that was present at every large family gathering and Slovak wedding. Our family recipe uses a beef/pork mixture with less rice, and the addition of tomato sauce or tomato soup instead of the sour cream. Sauerkraut is also used as a bed and between layers of stuffed cabbage, and we bake the fist sized delights covered in the oven or in an electric roaster or crock pot. Having a large family of cousins, the recipies were always compared in “secret”, and the wealthier family members recipies always had more meat and less rice. If there was a butcher in the family, their meat mixture always had more beef than pork and rice!
Thanks for your efforts to keep these wonderful Slovak recipes alive!

My family makes it in tomato puree or juice and toward end of cooking used to make a thickening of flour and oil with a little of tomato juice or water added then add to the whole pot. But in recent years my daughters and I have eliminated the thickening completely and still comes out wonderful. All the filling ingredients are raw including the rice which saves a lot of time. I also use the microwave to cook the cabbage which makes it a lot easier. We sometimes add a small can of kraut also.

My aunts taught us to simmer them in a tomato based sauce and then my Mom (not Slovak) adjusted the recipe and used tomato soup. They didn’t precook the filling. Then one of my cousins added her touch and simmers them in the tomato sauce but adds kraut and sausage. I take from all and do the tomato soup based sauce and add the kraut and sausage. Serve with heaping servings of Mashed potatoes too! Oh yes, here’s a tip from that same cousin. Try freezing the cabbage, then when you thaw, the leaves will be soft and pliable – no standing over a steamy pot to soften the leaves. Yummy!

I make them several times a year — never the same way twice! My mom cooks them in tomato sauce and enough water to cover, but I’ve done them with V-8 juice, tomato soup, one can of Ro-Tel (the Mexican tomato peppers). It’s way easy to mix it up for different eaters’ tastes. At church, our standard is one can of tomato soup, one can of tomato sauce and one can of sauerkraut.

I remember it pretty much the same way, though we cooked more of “plnenu papriku” – filled peppers than “plnenu kapustu”

A few differences – we used mostly ground pork (not beef) I assume because pork was more available in Slovakia than beef (in old times).

We semi precook a rice, not completely and let it finish when simmering the whole dish. I guess it’s all about timing and how much it takes to cook all ingredients to be done but not overdone or undercooked. If I remember right, my mom used a tomato based sauce, however, as I said, we made more of “filled peppers” than “filled cabbage” but I remember the sauce was more of the red color.

as a matter of fact, I’ll try to make it with “white, sour cream, based sauce” maybe this weekend to see what I like better. It just shows that you can cook the same dish a different ways, based on your preferences or traditions.

It goes for all cousins, think about Italy and pastas or seafood. You have a white sauces (aka “Alfredo” style) or you have a red sauces (aka “Milanese” style). We are all different and the same when it comes to cooking 🙂

My grandmother made huge roasting pans of cabbage rolls every Christmas. I make them now for my family every Christmas Eve. I use a pork-beef-rice mix. I pour a large can of Tomato juice or V-8 over the rolls and cook them in the oven, covered with the hard cabbage leaves and foil.

Coming from Partizanska Lupca plnena kapusta (holubky) were a traditional food. Here is the recipe we use today and eaten with boiled potatoes (mashed on teh p[late and drowned with the sauerkraut omacka. The saurekraut give the plnena an entirely different taste from the tomatoe sauce/ baked variety.

Boil water in large pot. Cut out the core of cabbage and put the cabbage with roots down and cover the pot partially. Cook for five (5) minutes so that the cabbage is not too soft, just until the leaves are tender. Take the cabbage out of water and allow the water to drain from cabbage. Remove the leaves from head and trim the thicker roots. You may have to use a knife to get the leaves off.
Allow the juice to drain from the sauerkraut and put the sauerkraut into a wide pot (put just enough to line the bottom of pot) Fill the leaves with the meat and roll up. I put a toothpick into the roll to hold it together. When the rolls are done put them in the pot on the sauerkraut when they are all in then add the rest of the kraut and chopped cabbage and add a can of tomato sauce and water to the top of the cabbage rolls. Then add 2 bay leaves, some caraway seed, some black pepper. Cook for 1 and half hour.
After the cabbage is cooked, carefully take them out and place on a dish. Take 3 – 4 pieces of bacon and fry them and add one small onion until brown. Finally, add ½ tsp. of red paprika and add all of this to the kraut. Then take 2 medium potatoes and grind them and add about 3/4 cup of milk to them and add this to the kraut, bring everything to boil and boil for a few minutes. You can put the rolls back in until you are ready to serve. ENJOY.

My family makes their stuffed cabbage much like yours except they put a can of tomato juice along with chopped onion and garlic, left over scraps of cabbage, caraway seed and bay leaf.
My Slavic grandparents came from Klenovec. My Czech grandparents came from Pilzen and Štemechy, South Moravia (that was a part of Austria). I love all the traditional foods and so does my family even though they are a bit more work.

Holubky… Yummmmmm! Thank you Lubos for posting your holubky and photos. My mamma fried about 2 strips of bacon, removed the bacon from skillet, add 1 cup finely chopped onion, saute for 3 mins.add 3/4c.long grain rice, stir into onions cover and turn of the heat, let rest.10 to 15mins. Meantime, put 1to 2 pounds of ground beef in a bowl, add salt , pepper, add the rice and onion mixture one beaten egg. cover with a plate, let rest. while you prepare the cabbage head and leafs as you did. Tip*** on rolling the cabbage leaf after deveining it,Place cabbage leaf in palm of hand deveined side down, take a large soup soup spoon, of filling tuck it into cabbage leaf and fold envelope style, setting the seam side down into your pot. Mamma cooked in large pot about 24 holubkies! covered with water.

We were 8 in family!

Ilearned when I was just 8 years old how to roll them! Not telling you how many yrs ago that was Ha ha!
Next time I make them I will be sure my High Tech son takes some pics and may I post them to your site?
Pokoj! Philka from Indiana

What timing for a plnena kapusta recipe. I’m preparing a Central European dinner for a friend’s birthday, planning to make segedinsky gulas, or Szeged Goulash, as an entree. I asked my mother, who’s Hungarian in Slovakia, for a recipe, and she recommended that since knedle is so difficult to make from scratch (knedle is what goes with segedinsky gulas), I should make plnena kapusta… Now I don’t know!

Hello! I must say my two grandmothers were correct. Everyone cooks with their own version of family recipes. One was Slovak and the other was Ukainian. They each had their take on Holubky(Stuffed Cabbage)

The Slovak Grandmother used raw rice in a mixture of raw meat and chopped onions ,
The Ukrainian Grandmother used to fry the meat with chopped onion and throw the raw rice in.
They both put on a big pot with water to boil and cut the core out of the cabbage. Pealed off the loose leaves and put in steaming water to become plyable.Then Putting the rest of the cabbage head, stalk side down in the water to steam. As the steam built up the leaves were released and got soft. They were then put on a big tray to be separated and cooled a bit to handle. Then filled and wrapped the same way you did. They Put in bottom of pot chopped up stalks and ripped leaves as a bed for theHolubky . they both then covered the Holubky in water and added a can of Hunts Tomato Sauce on top. If there was leftover meat ,meatballs were made and put on top to cook.Set on medium low flame to cook .YOu would know when it was done! Oh the smell in the house was intoxicating .Both grandmothers served the Holubky with a wonderful Homemade potato salad. and Crusty bread.

Our take on Halusky is different than yours too. Both Grandmothers shredded a big head of cabbage and cut up 1 huge onion in dices. Sauted that in butter. In another pot boiled water for homemade noodles. They put the cooked noodles into the pot with the sauted cabbage and onions. Wonderful meal for lent. This was served with pickled beets and crusty bread.
So now I will go downstairs and make a shopping list for tomorrow and make Holubky for Sunday . Both are family favorites among other ethnic food.
Have a great weekend and try our families recipes.

P.S. I do my Holubky using my mothers recipe, she was Ukrainian and cooked like her Slovak mother in law. BaBa’s Slovak recipe for Holubky It is more to our taste. But the Ukrainian Grandmother could make Paska(Ukrainian Easter Bread) like a master chef. Delicious and Very decorative. ! And her Pysanky were a wonder. But that is another letter for Eastertime. The were both winners in the kitchen.How Lucky was I to grow up in a family kitchen cooking like both Grandmothers??

Excellent instructions for a great receipe. My mother taught me a different way to make stuffed cabbage- with an egg, no sour cream, or onion ! I will print out your recipe and make it. Thanks for your good work in establishing this news letter. Also, it was nice to meet you at the Slovak Festival this Fall in NJ and eat your excellent cooking.

Hi: I often make stuffed cabbage. My mom’s recipe is the same as yours; however my neighbor (Jewish gal) introduced me to a new way of removing the cabbage leaves from the head. Put the full head of cabbage in the freezer overnight. When ready to separate the leaves, put the frozen head of cabbage in a dish pan, add warm water, peel off the leaves. It works and you don’t have to deal with the hot leaves. Try it.

This sounds a lot like the way my Mom, Aunts, and Grandfather used to make it. They combined ground beef and ground veal together and also poured tomatoes into the meats and over the top when it was served.

I used to live in southern Slovakia and this dish came to us from Hungary.I do not speak their language but some of their food I love.My friend in Budapest used to make it the best.She stufed cabage leaves with cooked rice and ground meat just like you say,put it in the deep pan and bake it in oven.Saute onions,garlic,paprika,bay leaves,caraway seeds and sour craut.Put there some chicken stock.Put it over the stufed cabage leaves,bake for one hour.Serve with home made bread and top with sour cream.EXCELENT !!!I also like szegedinsky gulas.Perfect winter dish.Vynikajuca je tiez KAPUSTNICOVA POLIEVKA.Dobru chut vsetkym vam.

My Slovak grandmother taught us to place a portion of sauerkraut, small amount of brown sugar, and Ketchup BETWEEM the layers of stuffed cabbage rolls. No tomatos or tomato sauce needed, as the ketchup gives the desired tomato taste to the sauce. (She cooked hers on top of the stove in a deep pot, so there were several layers.) After placing all of the rolled cabbage and layers (sauerkraut, brown sugar, and ketchup), she added enough water needed to cover the last and highest layer. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1 hour and 20 minutes. All of my family members have used this procedure for the past 50 years. . . a delicious dish ! Our recipe for the stuffed cabbage is similar to those posted here, although always an equal mix of ground beef and ground pork butt.

Folks have already commented on HOW the dish is prepared in THEIR family and I have nothing substantial to add over what has been written.

So I will just comment on the romance of the holubky dish!

Ha! Holubky and romance in the same sentence? And you thought it couldn’t be done!

What a treat to come home as a kid to a big pot of holubky on a cold winter day! You can have your Campbell’s soup as depicted thawing a frozen kid. Me? I’ll take holubky every time.

My mother called them “Turtle Eggs,” though I don’t know why. She used sauerkraut, dry rice, and ground pork and veal. That is she used veal, if she could get it or we could afford it, which was not often. But most often, it was ground beef, but I liked ground pork best.

I can still remember the very big aluminum pot, a prized possession in the 1940s and 1950s, being layered with the holubky and kraut and sneaking a bit of kraut to eat in anticipation of what was to come.

We often had mashed potatoes with this dish as well. I still love the juices and a bit of the kraut on mashed potatoes.

Both my sister and I still love these dishes from the halcyon days of our youth, though we never lived in Slovakia.

When I stopped to think about it decades later, I realized that many of these dishes are what one might call peasant food. Dishes like holusky and holubky were a time and generation tested way of feeding large families on little food using the least expensive ingredients, stretched as far as they would go.

Peasant food or not, I would pass up any fine and $$$$ meal for one more pot of anything made by my mother.

Wonderful food. Wonderful memories.

Hey! What am I talking about? Though Mother has long been late [God rest her], my wife learned to cook these and more from her, and we still eat these dishes today!

I grew up with what we called Haluki – also known as “pigs in the blanket”. It was the ground beef/ground pork mixture, with rice, wrapped in cabbage leaves and cooked in a tomato sauce. Like many of you, my family used bacon and sauerkraut in the making of this incredible dish. I have no memory of life without it, and like Walter, I would pay top dollar for this dish. It, to me, is the epitomy of love and comfort. I can feel my family all around me whenever I have the dish, even though most of them are gone. I have no family left from the “old country”, just wonderful memories that they gave me. And having Haluki makes those memories fresh and real.

When I was in Slovakia, Holubkij were prepared much like you said in the eastern part of Slovakia. It seemed to me that more Rusyns prepared this dish rather than Slovaks. Along with a few variations, the overwhelming style was sauerkraut, no tomatoes or cream! Relatives in Tichy Potok also made this with a lot of half-sharp paprika – perhaps this is where the idea for using tomatoes came from? Since Christmas Eve was still fasting, we in the States made the stuffed cabbage meatless, with rice or grated potato.
Thanks for the recipes….

Hello, I’m Lina, from Indonesia. I tried some of your recipes (Stuffed cabbage, potato salad, toasted Slovak snack, loaded schnitzels) they’re all just so delicious! Thanks a lot for sharing. 🙂 I always have such a good meal with my boyfriend. 😀

I enjoyed reading about some of the variations upon holubky or plnena kapusta. My grandparents came from Hervartov and their original method was done with pork and beef, raw rice, and then cooked with sauerkraut. (I was told they didn’t have tomatoes in the region at the time they emigrated.) They started cooking the hopubky in tomato sauce when I came along and didn’t like sauerkraut!

Interestingly, my halusky were done with either browned butter oir fried cabbage. Never heard of brynza until a few months ago!

There is a cookbook, published in 1976, apparently out of print but available used, called Favorite Recipes From Our Best Cooks Sisterhood of St. John’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church Johnson City New York. My Baba’s holubky recipe – which predates this book by decades – is virtually identical to one found in this book, except that it is called holubtsi in Ukrainian. My Slovak great-grandparents were from a pair of tiny villages in what was then the Hungarian County of Ung. His village is just barely in modern Slovakia, just south of Michalovce, and hers was in what is now Zakarpattia oblast in Ukraine. Many of the Slovak immigrants of a century ago were actively recruited from the eastern Slovak regions. They would have had many Ruthenian and Ukrainian neighbors. Since this recipe appears in a Ukrainian cookbook, and the recipe is mostly known among the descendants of Slovak immigrants to America, my guess is that it was adopted by Slovaks living in or near western Ukraine, which is why holubky are so common among American Slovaks yet so rare in modern Slovakia. That same Ukrainian cookbook also has several Paska recipes, one of which is just like hers, and several hrutka recipes, one of which is close to hers, except she never used a double boiler and tied 6 or 7 whole cloves in the hrutka while it cooked down.

My baba grew up in Trnava in west Slovakia, and was a cook for a wealthy family near Vienna. She emigrated to the US in 1917 (her passport stamped Austria—probably Austrian Empire). She cooked holubky with water which came from steaming the cabbage (lots of flavor in there!!). My mother watched baba make holubky and she taught me to layer the rolls with ketchup (not tomato sauce) diluted slightly with the water. The ketchup adds sweetness. Filling was very simple– ground beef, cooked rice, egg, some salt, onion (my baba used saffron in many things, and I suspected she added it here too—probably the secret ingredient, and one I use too). My oldest aunt (baba’s eldest daughter) suggested adding sauerkraut and some horseradish too when I cooked this with her. As noted in several comments, this is always my favorite!! I’m so glad I found this blog…have been hungry for Slovakian food these days.

What fun to read all the recipes and variations on halubky and halusky. These were a mainstay in my family when I was growing up. When I was a child my baba would make an enormous pot of halubky on her cookstove, fueled with coal. She used ground pork, rice, salt and pepper for the filling, and made the cabbage rolls after boiling the cabbage to get the leaves off. She would place a layer of shredded cabbage on the bottom of the pot; then a layer of saurkraut, followed by a layer of cabbage rolls, which she called “pigeons.” She added water to cover the layers and simmered all with a lid covering it for a couple of hours. At that point she browed diced onions in a skillet, adding flour to make a rue. She put the rue in the juices in the pot to thicken the broth. When they were done she would send some home to us, where we ate them in a flat bowl with the cabbage and kraut and topped with Campbells pork and beans, or with mashed potatoes. Yummmm! Baba was getting older and my mom wanted to learn to make the dish so she went to her house or learn. I, of course, learned from my mom. I like the addition of the tomato sauce, etc.
Thanks for all the good ideas!

Hello – I really enjoyed reading this! For my wife (whose grandmother emigrated from a little town called Zakarovce), holubky (she calls them “pigs in a blanket”) are THE quintessential slovak food, along with Easter Cheese, Kolache and Halusky.

If anyone is interested in seeing how my wife’s family made these, they can follow this link for some historical information, the recipe and step-by-step pictures.

I have not heard the term “easter cheese” since i was a little girl. My grandmother would make that every spring. I was never a fan of it. With that being said, I was not a fan of much slovak food…I have grown up now, and love and appreciate all the foods from my ancestors. I traveled to Slovakia last summer and learned to make many of these dishes (with the help of “google translate”).

My Slovakia grandmother, the best cook in Slovakia could have taught you all a thing or two.

Never measured with a cup or spoon…a handfull of this or that.

Halupki – soak your cabbage in sugar water to add flavor and soften the leaves. No Ketchup, in the early 20th century could you open the fridge and whip out the bottle? Tomato puree from your garden if you were fortunate to have them.

The family secret I will share with you. The men in the family found this Mom’s best. Take the best ‘Kielbasa’ you can find and let it simmer on top of that pot of cabbage rolls. It is to die for!

Anyone have anything to add? My grandmother measured everything with her hands…19th century Europe..THE FINEST!

it would be nice to show more courtesy to other posters. It’s interesting that all folks could post a different recipes, not offending other posters, and accepting that there are different ways how to cook the same stuff.

And then you came … knowing it all and offending other folks!!!
Thank you for your contribution …

So I tried to make these tonight… Didn’t turn out quite like I was expecting. I used ground turkey instead of beef/pork/veal… Do you think that could have made my stuffed cabbage a little bit bland? And the quality of cabbage I had was, admittedly, not the best. Maybe that had some effect too. I did enjoy reading some of these tips, for sure! I liked the idea about using kielbasa in the sauce. I’ll try that next time… There will be a next time! Without ground turkey and with an elite cabbage, though. 🙂

Just use beef or the mixture. This is how I think: My Slovakian Grandmother didn’t have access to ground turkey, or ketchup , or chicken broth, or canned tomato sauce, or tomato soup, etc.. Keep it true and simple. :].

I’ve enjoyed reading all of the posts and the different variations of stuffed cabbages. I make them several times a year the way my mother did. I partially cook the rice, and let it cool. I use raw meat and chopped onions, salt, pepper, rice, and chopped bacon for the filling. I make deep slits into the head of the cabbage so the leaves will be easier to pull off as the cabbage simmers in a pot of water. Roll up cabbage, place on a bed of the chopped core, layer rolled up cabbages, 2-3 links of smoked sausage on top, a layer of sauerkraut, and cover with the thick , dark green, outer leaves. Add cabbage cooking water, cover and bake. Yuumm!!

My mom made the BEST stuffed cabbage. She used the seasoning from a box of Spanish rice, used lots of sauerkraut,and tomato soup. When I was younger, she used to put ham hocks in the roaster with the cabbage rolls, then she switched to kielbasa, which is yummy. She is 90 now, so she doesn’t cook anymore(and can’t remember how she made it), and me and my sister don’t either. We tried to make it, but my mom didn’t use measurements, so…I have been looking for a recipe that is close to hers. We always had it at Christmas & Easter, the holidays just aren’t the same anymore!

I am very lucky. My mother is from Slovakia and my father from Italy. Jano from mother Giovanni from dad. Christmas eve kapustnica and poppyseed kolachy from mom and Christmas polenta and chicken from dad. One sister is now the cook and has all receipts written down. Like I said very lucky

Hello, I loved reading all of your stories about your ‘Babas’ and it made me so melancholy. I miss all my Babas, including my great one. She came from Slovakia and couldn’t speak English and when she did it was hard to understand. My favorite memory has to do with ‘noodle making’. My grandmother and her mother would cover all the dining room furniture with clean white sheets and then begin making all their different noodles. From soup to haluski. All the chairs had sheets with noodles hanging over them. The air was filled with flour dust like a faint fog. The aroma will never leave me as long as I live. Hope this story brought back some memories for all or some of you. My grandmother always had kiska on the stove (it seems). I was blessed with living next door to my grandparents. She was such a wonderful cook. My Mom was from an English background and my Dad’s mother taught her everything about Slovakian cooking. My Mom could cook as good as my grandmother. Also, we had potato salad with the stuffed cabbage only in warm months as picnic fare. All months with an ‘r’ in them, excluding September, were with mashed potatoes. Also, since leaving Pennsylvania we have not been part of a parish that had the blessing of the baskets on Holy Saturday. I missed that, but my husband was in the military and we moved every three to four years. I remember how wonderful our church smelled that day ever year. Everyone looking into everyone else’s baskets to see what they had brought. Our parish was a melting pot of every nationality, I think. Wonderful memories. Thank you all again for sharing.

I can tell from your list of ingredients it’s the first time you’ve made stuffed cabbage. I’m thanking my lucky stars today that I didn’t ‘fall’ for a Slovakian blog, thinking “she must know how to make stuffed cabbage.” I’m sorry, even though there are many different ways to make stuffed cabbage, yours is extremely dull and one note. I’m from Scottish and German decent and I KNOW I make better! Want the recipe?

You are extremely rude, critical, and oblivious to differences of cuisine and language within a culture.
Assuming you are an American, do you recognize the differences in our American culture as it relates to food and language?

Your reply is an attack in words. This is food recipes here and your angry nature is not needed.
Please show more respect. I get the national pride thing but you’re only talking about cabbage rolls. You seem quite angry. I can’t imagine that you are much fun to be around. Show more self respect. Your recipe is too acidic.

oh heck, let her eat what she cooks, and be done with it. She must be a master cook, yet I still prefer “my way” when it comes to taste.

susan … you’ve been chopped in a good way of “who’s meal is on chopping block. Oh heck, let her eat what she cooks, and be done with it. She must be a master cook, yet I still prefer “my way” when it comes to taste.

susan … you’ve been chopped in a good way of “who’s meal is on chopping block … just making fun of some “master cooks”

My great grandparents came over from Prague right about 1900, settled in the still tiny Disputana, VA. My grandmother (Meemaw) and ALL of her eight siblings all made what they called “pigs in a blanket” but I never heard the Slovak name until just now. Got the recipe from my mom and while I was cooking thought I would see if I could find the original name.
The recipe is simple, but no tomato (that was used when stuffing peppers):

lb. ground beef
lb. sausage
1-1/2 C rice
all stuffed into cabbage, then rolled and topped with sauerkraut, baked for an hour @ 300 and served. Left overs are even better.

Always a dish at Thanksgiving, Christmas and any event when the whole family got together. Love the bacon idea, but I am sure they lined the bottom of their pans with bacon grease, ha!

Hi, this recipe is closest to my great grandmothers recipe I’ve found. She came to the U.S. from Stebnik, Slovakia in 1904. We called it “Halupka”. (Great Grandma spoke what she called “Low Russian”) I have never eaten it with tomato anything in it. Just seasoned with paprika with a pad of butter, salt and pepper on the top. Unfortunately, I didn’t write down her recipe as she did everything from memory. (she even made paska from memory!!) Thanks for giving me a place to start to recreate the food I’ve been missing for years!

Hello again. We always had halubki for Thanksgiving as well. It is such a great dish that goes with everything. My recipe is made with tomato. The halubki are about 3 inches long and not funnel shaped. We never cooked the rice with the onions because we always made rice pudding with the extra rice. Never used sour cream either. I think it’s very interesting the different flavors, but considering that having a goat would make the use of cream and cheese the only natural way to go. These original recipes go back many, many years. In Pennsylvania (Elizabeth – McKeesport) they have an event in August called International Village. All the different nationalities had music and dancers from the various nations and they would prepare the nations favorite dishes. We always got a pint from each. The Polish, Slovak and Hungarian halubki were all different, but each delicious. Also, if you know Pennsylvania, there is an amusement park called Kennywood and every July they have Slovak Day. They take up the area around 3 pavilions and had the dancers and music as well as plate lunches. Halushki, pierogi and other foods are served, including ceregi which are a Slovak version of a donut. We always cut a slit in a square and pulled a corner through the slit, but those served a Kennywood were long like a corndog, powdered or sugared. Delicious either way! Thanks for all your thoughts on cooking.

Such fun reading all the recipes and postings, even the vituperative ones. Linguistic note: holub is a dove/pigeon, holubki, however spelled in whichever Slavic language, means little doves. Historical note: there were no autos. Your ancestors used feet. Communication between villages wasn’t great so variations in words, recipes, dress, even names and trades occurred. So be accepting.

[quote]”Historical note: there were no autos. Your ancestors used feet. Communication between villages wasn’t great so variations in words, recipes, dress, even names and trades occurred. So be accepting.”[/quote]

This is exactly correct! I have seen huge and bitter arguments raised about such things, and never understood why. To me, it is one of the joys of what I call “peasant cooking” – such things varied from region-to-region, village-to-village and even cottage-to-cottage. All were “correct, but sometimes things were subject to what was avaialble or local customs etc.

Thank you again, Martha – if you don’t mind, I may borrow your quote in a future writing!

Being from Cleveland Ohio am very familiar to stuffed cabbage. I think every Slavic person’s family, German’s included :)each nation made it their own way but all were excellent.
My mother from checzslovacia made the rolls with sauerkraut and left over cabbage sliced thin all mixed and then on bottom as well as top of cabbage rolls and then poured some tomato juice over all and slowly roasted in oven. Always delicious.
I have tried the Russian method where the meat was mixed along with the rick and then after placing in roasting pan they put sourcream over all. This is also excellent. Perhaps I missed some ingrediant in the Russisn method as this was eons ago and my brain has aged 🙂
I still love the Slavic food no matter which country 🙂

Hello again. I wanted to say that I tried the bacon slab (rind) and it does give the halupki a very smoky flavor. My husband really loved it. I also couldn’t find a slab one day and just laid thin slices of bacon in the pot over the layers and they just melted away, but left the same delicious flavor and savory bits of bacon pieces.
We used homegrown preserved tomato juice and kraut as well.
My Baba came from Eastern Slovakia. Really my great grandmother, but we called her Baba. She was from the area Seckov Jencove. On her immigration paperwork it was spelled Seckr jenke. I suppose that is the phonetic spelling.
It’s time to make the pascha. Easter is coming and my family can’t wait for all the goodies. Hrutka is my favorite. Or sir. I may be confused about this, but we always called egg cheese ‘hrutka or hurdka’ maybe. It’s the rolling of the ‘r’s, right? 🙂 Still looking for horse radish. My family grew the root, but since they passed there is none.
Blessed Triduum everyone!

I have a few times made a Babka or Easter Pascha ….My dear grandmother who lived to be 102 said it was alittle heavy..Any suggesions to correct that?
I too love hrutka my favorite. I can eat it for weeks. I put alittle salt and pepper and yes alittle red beet horseradish on the side..God bless you all…Christ Is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

Hello, I just remember what my mother always would tell me. Not to work the dough too long the first kneading. It is in the folding over and over that you are adding the air. Then the raising and then punch down is important. It took me years to get it right. Make sure the scalded milk is cooled to near room temperature before adding it. Over time I got mine to be lighter. I think when I relaxed, it started working for me. I bake mine tomorrow. I hope yours comes out lighted than air. I make extra Hrutka for me. I have one for the family and one to munch. I don’t add the condiments on the side. I may just try that this year. Thanks! God bless you and yours at this Blessed Season. Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

for the modern day version I found success using V8 low sodium.Place your completed rolled cabbage rolls inside a stove top soup pot and fill with V8 to the top of the rolls. Cover and place on mediuem . Done in about 30 to 40 minutes….Moist and tender. You can add your favorite spices as needed.

I wondered if anyone had heard of halupky the way I was taught.I make the cabbage roll with beef,onion,rice,eggs and a smidge of fresh garlic chopped fine,but then I do NOT use any tomatoes.
I add our own homemade sauerkraut first layer,then the pigs,then finally a layer of sauerkraut,for the very top layer I make a “old fashioned white gravy”(that’s what a little old slovak lady called it)actually it’s a Roux,then bake and it’s pigs with a delicious flavored gravy!! YUMMO
has anyone heard of it this way and where did it derive from???

Hi Ruthie, My grandfather and my grandmother’s father were from Slovakia near the Hungarian border. My grandmother always made her holubki with roux – brown sauce, not tomato – and used a mix of veal and pork which she cooked with sauerkraut I have been searching for a tomato-less recipe, as I’ve never had any holubi as good as hers. Thanks or posting your comments about the roux. It finally clicked for me what was missing. I will check with my aunt who is in her 90’s and still cooking to see if she can send me the recipe.

Half Slovak half polish.
Prefer my Babas hulubky
She made them tiny! Which made them super moist and delicious
The polish ones are too big and dry for my liking
Each leaf makes 4 cabbage rolls that’s how small were talking. She was from the mountains
Miss her dearly

Dobru chut y’all! Here in North Cacky Lacky it’s traditional to eat collards, ham and black-eyed peas on New Years. So I’m making collards stuffed with pulled pork in a carolina bbq sauce with pirohy filled with black-eyed peas (especially good stuffed with sweet potato).

My grandmother (who’s “Babu” to my daughter) makes hers oven-baked in tomato sauce, but I could almost smell it cooking from reading your recipe.

She saves bacon drippings to flavor the meat, and, honestly, since this is peasant food, if you think about it adding more rice than meat makes the meat go further to feed a large family.

I don’t like many things that Grandma cooks, but her halubke is my favorite. Thank you for the basic method; it won’t be Grandma’s Halubke until I make the time to cook with her, but this will get me started.

Happy Holidays

Wishing you all happy holidays and all the best in 2018. Hopefully 2017 was a good year for you all.

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